


cold wind

by sungshine (ujujuu)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Dissociation, Existential Crisis, Gen, M/M, NOT a love triangle, Platonic Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, please mind the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ujujuu/pseuds/sungshine
Summary: There was this constant push and pull. Jisung wasn’t fine, but he was fine. It was like he was drowning, but he could breathe underwater through the tiniest of straws, just enough that he wasn’t going fully under. Some days that straw felt dangerously close to snapping, the small breathing hole closing up until he felt like he could barely handle it. But he was fine. Mostly.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	cold wind

**Author's Note:**

> got into a weird funk and this was the product. as usual please mind the tags, this is probably the darkest thing i'll ever write but nothing is graphic. i couldn't find the tag for this but this is set vaguely in covid times and there will be references to it throughout. jisung also has tinnitus in this, to put it simply basically a hearing condition where there's always this ringing or static noise that is much more noticeable when its quiet, hence the references in this fic.
> 
> idk if this needs to be said but jisung's experiences and thoughts in this are entirely based on my own experiences with mental illness, social isolation, etc. and everyone experiences it differently so just keep that in mind when reading pretty much any fic that deals with mental illness really. don't worry though, i'm genuinely fine but everyone has their darker moments and that's where this came from ahaha 
> 
> **disclaimer:** i write fanfiction for fun and i DO NOT take ships seriously. i don't condone fetishization or forcing ships onto anyone, especially not the idols themselves. if you don't feel comfortable with any of the themes in this fic, just click away now and don't read, please do not complain about content in this fic that you would have already known about through the tags or trigger/content warnings.

Jisung swiped through yet another burnt-out gifted kid with ADHD TikTok video. It was relatable, as were many others, but it just didn’t feel quite right, labeling himself as an ex-gifted kid. Sure, he did well academically and was constantly bombarded with comments about his “great potential” and “bright future” as a child, but he had never felt truly gifted, in the sense that he felt truly proud of his own accomplishments. 

Eventually, he had hit a plateau and realized that in the process of chasing that successful future that everyone had impressed upon him, he had lost all sense of self. What was he interested in? What did he want to do in the future? Everyone would always ask him and Jisung would always parrot back the same answer the adults around him had told him. A doctor. An engineer. A teacher. And eventually, just a simple “I don’t know.”

Things had changed somewhat once he reached college. He finally made friends with some of the best people he had ever met. Chan and Changbin had taken him into their fold immediately despite Jisung being a shaky freshman, socially awkward and wide-eyed at his first college party. With them came Felix, a fellow nervous freshman that Jisung had quickly bonded with, and… Minho. 

Jisung and Minho had fallen together, for lack of a better term, like long-lost soulmates. Their friends had never thought they would mesh, with Jisung’s sometimes overbearing clinginess and Minho’s violent aversion to any form of skinship, but somehow they just managed to make it work. Minho doted on him unlike how he was with any of his other underclassman friends and Jisung clung onto him without fear of being pushed away like he had been so many times before. 

Since the very beginning, Jisung had felt the sparks of something more, but buried it deep down inside of him. No one needed to know, least of all Minho, and Jisung would be saving himself the rejection anyway. Jisung was good at keeping his emotions hidden away from the world. It was better not to show any kind at all, he had learned sometime during highschool. Showing or telling someone had only ever led to making people uncomfortable and disappointing his parents. 

Besides, Jisung was satisfied like this, being able to keep company with Minho. Minho had never shown any interest beyond what they had platonically and it was enough for him to just be happy with him. Jisung didn’t care as long as Minho was happy. 

Then, quarantine had hit and Jisung had to move back to his hometown while Minho stayed in the apartment he had already signed a lease on. Logically, Jisung knew that it would be safer to be back at home than to scramble to find an apartment last minute, but he also knew that being alone had never been good for him. Being alone meant racing thoughts, overthinking, the lines of logic a jumbled mess in his head. Jisung had hope that he would be reunited with Minho and his friends soon, but it had already been months and Jisung couldn’t see the end of it anymore.

And here he found himself huddled in his bed a bit past his dinnertime, wrapped in his blankets with his eyes and hands peeking out just enough to scroll mindlessly through his laptop. It was almost time for his weekly Facetime call with Minho, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to attempt to look presentable like he had before.

To be honest, at this point Jisung had lost all sense of time or purpose, but his calls with Minho were often the only markers for the passage of time and what got him through the week.

The clock ticked 7 pm and his screen was lighting up with the Facetime notification right on time. Every week, there was a small part of Jisung that expected Minho to just stop showing up, but it was always a pleasant surprise to see the other be the proactive one, always reaching out to confirm that their calls were still on.

Jisung answered the call, licking his chapped lips and clearing his throat to prepare himself for the only talking he does beyond the curt greetings he returns to his parents. Minho blinked in surprise.

“Jisung? Why is it so dark there? I thought you guys were three hours behind us.”

“Oh,” Jisung said softly, glancing around his dark room, “Sorry, I must’ve forgotten. I’ve been on my laptop the entire day. Too lazy to get up.”

Minho left it at that, given that Jisung was usually cocooned in his bed on the weekends, but Jisung knew that it had already set off warning bells in his mind.

“What have you been up to? Anything new since the last time we talked?” Jisung asked.

“To be honest, nothing much. I’ve just got a… date with Chan later tonight,” Minho said with a smile, almost shyly.

Jisung felt a pang in his heart, a vague sense of panic welling up inside of him, but he smothered it down with a laugh. This wasn’t something he wanted or needed to deal with right now.

“Nothing much? You call getting together with Chan hyung nothing much?”

“Psh, we’re not actually together yet,” Minho rolled his eyes, “It’s just a first date, nothing special.”

“Well, I’d say that’s pretty special. Chan hyung is a good person. I know he’ll make you happy,” Jisung smiled. 

His happiness for Minho was genuine. Both of his hyungs were good people and he knew that they deserved it, deserved each other. It just hurt knowing that two of his closest friends had found something with each other while Jisung was just left here, laying in the dust. 

Jisung felt guilty. No one owed him anything and it was wrong of him to feel like this, especially when he had never quite figured out his own feelings for Minho and had never expressed them in any way other than platonically. He had no place to be feeling the way he did now, but he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the wave of anxiety and melancholy threatening to crest and crash inside his chest.

“So,” Jisung cleared his throat, “What do you guys have planned?”

“Just a normal dinner, probably at that sushi place down the road we went to all the time,” Minho shrugged, “I like simple, Chan likes seafood, so I think it’s a good choice.”

“That’s great, hyung,” Jisung said, clutching his blanket tighter around himself, “I hope your date goes well. Say hi to Chan hyung for me.”

“Of course. You should probably call him sometime, too. He told me you guys haven’t properly talked in months,” Minho narrowed his eyes in suspicion, “Have I been the only person you’ve been talking to since quarantine hit?”

Jisung shrugged wordlessly, trying to reassure Minho with a small smile.

Minho sighed, clearly unhappy, but they both knew that there was nothing he could do on his side to make Jisung socialize more.

“Alright, well, Chan will probably try to talk to you or call you sometime soon. Now, enough about me, Jisung. What have you been up to?”

Jisung paused, wracking his brain for anything that he could actually put into words. Marathoning Ghibli movies on the weekends instead of doing homework didn’t really sound great and neither did depression naps in the afternoons from lunch until dinner. Sometimes he even forwent dinner, too lethargic and apathetic to make himself food, only to binge eat instant ramen at 3 am. It was a constant cycle of apathy and existential panic and- oh. He had been spacing out for too long. Minho was looking increasingly troubled as time passed and Jisung knew he had to say something.

“Hyung, I… “

He hesitated. Minho seemed happy and satisfied. Content. What was Jisung’s place to ruin that and burden him with his own problems? He was fine. 

Minho’s eyebrows furrowed, concerned as he looked over Jisung in the small monitor.

“Jisungie? Are you sure you’re doing alright?”

Jisung blinked out of his reverie, quirking a small smile at Minho that hopefully didn’t look too fake through the laptop screen. 

“Yeah, I’m okay, hyung.”

He could tell Minho wasn’t buying it, but he was across the country, in a state thousands of miles away, and they both knew that if Jisung wanted to keep things under wraps, there wasn’t any way Minho could get it out of him if they weren’t together in person.

“I’m okay,” Jisung repeated.

Minho stared at him longer, like if he looked hard enough he could figure Jisung out. He relented with a sigh, glancing at the time on his phone.

“Alright, well, I have to go meet up with Chan now,” Minho pursed his lips, glancing back at Jisung worriedly, “You know I’m always here for you, right? I would never judge you for anything and would totally help you bury a body if you needed me to.”

Jisung let out a genuine laugh at that. They had always agreed that it would be Minho, if anyone, who would be the one who needed a body to be hid, but it brought him a sort of nostalgic joy to hear his own words parroted back at him. 

“Yeah, don’t worry, hyung. I have your number if I ever need you.”

Minho hung up the call with a last smile and a wave and then Jisung was left alone, the only light in his room the artificial white light of his laptop screen casting a pallid glow on his face.

The silence was suffocating, but it was never really silence. The high-pitched static of his undiagnosed tinnitus was a constant companion, but Jisung had never realized just how much it would drive him insane until now. 

There was this constant push and pull. He wasn’t fine, but he was fine. It was like he was drowning, but he could breathe underwater through the tiniest of straws, just enough that he wasn’t going fully under. Some days that straw felt dangerously close to snapping, the small breathing hole closing up until he felt like he could barely handle it. But he was fine. Mostly.

Today was one of those days where he toed the line between struggling to breathe and wanting to just snap the straw with his own hands. Fuck, he needed fresh air.

Jisung untangled himself from his blankets, the space he was occupying the only warm spot in his room. He peeked his head out of the room to check if his parents were there and was relieved to find that he wouldn’t have to explain why he was going outside while it was dark. 

He hesitated at the entrance, glancing at the stack of unused masks on the counter. In some ways, Jisung resented the mask and the way it symbolized the reason for his isolation, the reason for the waves of prickling, numbing loneliness that washed over him on a daily basis, but he always tried to be responsible if not anything else. He grabbed one from the stack and put it on before shoving his feet into a pair of slides and leaving. 

Jisung took the stairs one at a time up to the roof of the apartment complex, his steps echoing loudly against concrete walls. He pushed the heavy door open, letting the cold wind blow over his face and through his hair as he walked outside.

Jisung slid down the wall, back scraping against the rough concrete as he sat down facing the railing, his eyes closed against the bright city lights. Usually being up here helped him breath, helped him make sense of whatever fuckery was happening in his head, but if anything, he felt like he was only making it worse.

For a moment, Jisung just stopped thinking, his thoughts a high-pitched static like the tinnitus in his ears, everything muffled yet sharp, hazy but clear. It felt like he was floating in some place where he was simultaneously existing yet not. It was weird, like looking back down at himself but everything shaded in muted gray undertones. Ah, was it the dissociation?

He opened his eyes, peering through the metal bars of the railing to watch the cars pass below. Isn’t it strange and mystical how insignificant one’s life truly is once faced with the grand scheme of things? Everyone lived their own little lives without ever knowing the experiences, the sorrows, the joys of those that they meet everyday or come in contact with for one mere second. What was human life truly worth, if not to enjoy it and live it as fully as one can? And what does it mean when everything seems hopeless? Ah, the existential dread is setting again, but Jisung can’t stop himself once his mind gets going.

Everyone says that there is always a reason to keep living and that those who say they don’t have a reason just haven’t found it yet. But Jisung had gone down the list, looked at his options. He had thought success would make him happy when he was little. Going into college, he had thought personal connections would make him happy. None of that had meaning now. 

Living a life aimlessly, without a purpose, even if he was satisfied with life’s daily passing, could he truly be happy in the grand scheme of things? No matter how he lived the rest of his life, he would be nothing but a speck, an insignificant gnat underneath the footprint of time that ultimately would be forgotten.

Jisung wasn’t sure how he wanted to live anymore and if he even wanted to live anymore. But he hated disappointing anyone, most of all his family and friends. Surely, Minho would be sad if he disappeared right? But he had Chan now, he would be fine. It was hard for Jisung to imagine their friend group dynamic being different without himself. People joke about the fear of missing out all the time, but to him it meant more than that, like he was looking in from the outside on everyone else’s happy lives. Everyone was content without him. Eventually everyone would find their place without him and be happier for it. Jisung had never really found his place and now he felt like he never would. 

His heart fluttered and blood rushed in his ears as he stood up, leaning against the railing with crossed arms. It would be so easy to disappear right at this moment. No one who knew him would even find him if he did, although he feels bad for whichever poor pedestrian might eventually find his body if he actually goes through with it.

He took a deep breath, tilting his head back to look at the clear night sky. The stars twinkled back at him, detached and uncaring. The cold wind was blowing, and he looked down.

**Author's Note:**

> just wanted to add that i hope y'all are staying safe during covid times and that i hope y'all have ppl who are looking out for you and that you're also looking out for yourself! i know that social isolation is getting to a lot of ppl and please don't feel shame in seeking out help, whether in professional ways or through your friends.
> 
> find me on twt or on cc! i post sneak peaks and updates on fics often so follow if u wanna catch those :D 
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/sungshinyyy)  
> [nsfw twt](https://twitter.com/sungshinyyy)  
> 


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